Effects of cumulated outdoor activity on wildlife habitat use

Humans profoundly affect animal distributions by directly competing for space, not only transforming, but actively using their habitat. Anthropogenic disturbance is usually measured via structural proxies such as infrastructure and land use that overlook the impact of human presence, or functional disturbance. In this study, we propose a methodology unifying two paradigms, mobility movement, to fill gap. We developed novel spatially-explicit index anthropic disturbance, Cumulative Outdoor activity Index (COI), validated it with ground truth observations derived from camera trapping (r = +0.63, p < 0.001). Building on previous work Peters et al. (2015, Biol. Cons. 186, 123–133) Critically Endangered brown bear population in Alps, used Resource Selection Analysis assess influence different forms anthropogenic relative probability habitat selection. The intensity COI provided an effective measure outperformed all alternative commonly-used predicting use. Our predictions suggest shrinks its ecological niche consequence intense otherwise suitable These constraints may limit potential range expansion bears establish viable Alpine-Dinaric metapopulation. Conclusive conservation future planning towards human-wildlife coexistence should account presence humans landscape. proposed could help determine where mitigation measures be enforced.